brokeback's out on dvd today:
The "gay cowboy movie" is shorthand for "Brokeback Mountain" that neither does it justice nor gives the right impression. It's about two men who are in love, and it makes no sense. It makes no sense in terms of who they are, where they are, how they live and how they see themselves. It makes no sense in terms of what they do for a living or how they would probably vote in a national election. It makes no sense, except in one place in the world, the place where it started, on Brokeback Mountain in Wyoming.

And though they come down from that mountain and go about their lives, they keep going back to it, over the course of years, because however much the love doesn't make sense, it's real -- so real, it makes their lives unreal. There are kids, marriages, jobs, nights of drinking, heterosexual flings, in-laws and holidays to celebrate, and they do everything they're expected to do, but numb. Then every so often, they meet back up on the mountain and get to be themselves for a few stolen days.